


start to believe for the first time

by elizaham8957



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, College AU, F/M, Fluff, Holiday, Lydia is still a genius and Stiles is still in love with her, What else is new, coffee shop AU, written for the 2017 stydia secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 06:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13140969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaham8957/pseuds/elizaham8957
Summary: "This place actually reminds me of a little coffee shop in my hometown.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back.”“They do have really good coffee,” she offered, grinning at him slightly. Stiles laughed, nodding his head, before turning back to his homework, the conversation between them dying as they fell back into comfortable silence.He was cute, Lydia had to admit. Not her typical type, but— ever since Jackson, she’d been a little leery of her typical type anyways. His nose turned up at the end, and he had a slight scattering of moles across his face, his jawline sharp and defined. But his eyes were what really got her— god, she had never seen eyes like his before. And it had been nice, chatting with him for those few couple minutes. He was funny, albeit a little awkward at times, with his flailing limbs and exaggerated facial expressions. But it worked for him— it was almost endearing.Lydia decided that maybe sharing her table with him wasn’t the worst thing in the world.





	start to believe for the first time

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays, everyone! This was written for the 2017 Stydia Secret Santa, and it is so fluffy that I should probably be ashamed. It's a coffee shop au, though, and it's Christmas time. I couldn't help myself. 
> 
> Thank you so much to Tegan (@leopoldjamesfitz) for betaing for me! And thank you to Fer (@lydiastxles) for giving me the idea to do a coffee shop au in the first place, and for reading this and assuring me it was good. You're both the best, and I'm so grateful for you help with this :)
> 
> I'm stilesssolo on tumblr and twitter if you ever wanna talk! I'd love to hear what you think of this, too. 
> 
> Enjoy, and happy holidays!

There was someone sitting at Lydia’s table. 

Not that it was officially her table. But it was the place she sat every day when she came into this coffee shop, bag heavy with textbooks and her laptop. It was in the perfect spot— right by the windows, secluded enough for her to focus on her homework but also not so isolated that she couldn’t keep an eye on her stuff when she needed to go order a refill. She’d staked her claim on it back in the first week of the semester, almost two months ago, when she had discovered that the MIT libraries, while certainly beautiful, were not an effective place for her to study. 

But right now, that plan was ruined, because there was someone  _ at her table.  _

It was a guy, probably about her age, based on the textbooks and laptop sprawled out in front of him. He was drumming out an imaginary beat on his temple with long fingers, the other hand holding loosely to a  _ scarily  _ large cup of coffee. His eyes were trained on the textbook before him, engrossed in whatever he was reading, his lips pursed in concentration. It was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere  _ any  _ time soon. 

Annoyed, Lydia took another table. 

***

He was there the next day too. 

Lydia groaned when she saw him, clutching her extra large macchiato in one hand and the strap of her bag in the other, because she had a modern physics project that she needed to work on, and the only other table available was between a group of soccer moms and a horde of middle schoolers. 

The guy didn’t even  _ need  _ that big of a table, Lydia thought angrily. He was just reading something on his laptop today, his chin propped in his hand, his eyes scanning the screen. He could have  _ easily  _ taken one of the armchairs in the corner, or one of the stools at the counter, or  _ anywhere but her table.  _

Lydia had a system and a plan, and she didn’t like when things messed with it. 

Maybe that was why she walked up to the table, slinging her bag over her shoulder and bracing her free hand on her hip. It was probably a bitchy thing to do, seeing as it wasn’t  _ really  _ her table, but she had a ton of work to do, and she was already aggravated at the thought of having to go back to campus and study in her room. 

“This is my table,” she told the guy, her tone of voice indicating how annoyed she was. His eyes immediately snapped up, locking on hers, his expression completely bewildered.

“Uh?” he stuttered, just staring at her. “I’m… sorry?” 

“I always sit here,” Lydia informed him. “So if you could sit at a different table in the future, it would be very much appreciated.” 

“Sure,” the guy responded, running a hand through his chestnut hair, making the front stick up even more than it had been before. “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d, uh, already staked your claim.” She could tell he was nervous, just by the way his hands flailed a little when he spoke. “Um. You can sit here now, still, if you want.” 

Normally, Lydia would have walked away, found somewhere else to work. But the coffee shop was packed— the empty table she’d seen previously was less than desirable, and there  _ was  _ a lot of open space at this table. And she  _ liked  _ this spot. Hopefully this guy would leave soon, and then she would have the booth all to herself. 

Hesitantly, she placed her coffee on the table, waiting to gauge the guy’s reaction and see if he was serious. He didn’t protest, just slid his laptop down a little more, making more room for her. She dropped her bag on the bench, sliding into the opposite side of the booth from him, before tugging out her laptop and her textbook, rummaging through for a pencil and graph paper to start her work. 

The guy didn’t leave right away, much to her dismay; however, it wasn’t necessarily  _ horrible,  _ sharing the space with him. He didn’t say a word, just kept reading whatever was on his laptop, completely engrossed. Occasionally he’d take a sip of the enormous iced mocha in front of him, but other than that, Lydia barely noticed he was there. She was so focused on her project that she didn’t even realize he was closing his laptop and packing up his stuff until he was sliding out of the booth, standing in front of the table. 

“Well, I’m heading out,” he told her, gesturing towards the door with a jerk of his thumb. “Uh, good luck with the rest of your homework.” 

“Thanks,” Lydia said, nodding politely to him. He smiled at her slightly, before turning and leaving. 

Lydia pushed her textbook down, taking up all the room the table now offered. Her phone lit up with a text message from Allison— but the time blinked back at her at the top of the screen, bold white numbers reading that it was almost six o’clock. Startled, Lydia surveyed the shop— the tables were emptying, the baristas wiping down the counter after the late afternoon rush. She hadn’t even realized how much time had passed while she had been sitting here, working on homework next to the mystery boy. 

Lydia worked until seven, finally satisfied with her progress on her project. Packing up her things, she grabbed her bag, surveying her table one last time before heading out of the shop. 

***

Lydia was expecting to finally find her booth empty today, but she almost groaned when she realized that guy was sitting there  _ again.  _

She walked up to the table anyways, prepared to remind him politely that she had asked him specifically  _ not  _ to sit here, especially when there were so many other empty booths, but before she could even open her mouth, he was looking up at her, an easy grin on his face. He looked less uncomfortable at her presence today, but that might have just been due to the fact that he was actually prepared for her to yell at him for once again taking her spot. 

“I know what it looks like,” the guy said, already packing up his bag. “But I  _ swear  _ I wasn’t taking the table for me.” He paused, and Lydia narrowed her eyes, her expression skeptical. 

“There was a group of high schoolers eyeing it,” he said. “And I figured I’d save it for you.” 

“Oh,” Lydia said, a little taken aback. She wasn’t sure if he was lying or not, but he  _ was  _ packing up his bag, standing up and preparing to surrender the booth to her. 

Lydia should have let him go, should have let him find some other table to work at— but the fact that he had actually saved her table for her had her intrigued. She knew she was supposed to be here to study, but… there was something about this guy that interested her. Made her want to know more. And he  _ had  _ done her a favor. 

“You can stay,” she told him, placing her bag on the opposite bench. He looked at her, a little bewildered, his eyes growing ever-so-slightly wider. 

“Are you sure?” the guy asked, hand nervously playing with the strap of his backpack. “I don’t mind moving, really.” 

“No,” Lydia insisted. “I mean, if you  _ want  _ to stay, you can. I don’t mind.” 

“Oh,” the guy said, easing his bag back onto the bench, taking a seat across from her. “Uh, okay, if you’re sure. Thanks.” 

“Thank you for saving my spot,” Lydia said, shooting him a tiny grin. He froze a little, blinking in surprise at her sudden amicability, before regaining his composure and smiling back at her. 

Now  _ Lydia  _ froze, taken aback by the look on his face. His eyes, she noticed— she’d never seen eyes like his before. They were a gorgeous mix of amber and whiskey, open and light, staring at her with something unreadable in them. Lydia looked down, reaching for her laptop, because she could feel her heart speeding up a little bit, and she had homework to focus on. 

“I’m Stiles, by the way,” the guy said, and her eyes snapped back up to him, trying to see if he was joking. 

_ “Stiles?”  _ she asked, quirking an eyebrow. He shrugged, looking back at her. 

“Yeah. It’s a nickname,” he clarified. “My real name is very Polish and  _ very  _ unpronounceable.” 

She almost laughed at that. “I’m Lydia,” she offered in return.

“Lydia,” he said, like he was trying it out. His eyes were fixed on hers again, the intensity of his gaze almost overwhelming. Lydia wasn’t used to people looking at her like that. 

They both fell silent after that, turning back to their work, the only sound the scratch of Lydia’s pencil on her graph paper and the occasional clacking of Stiles’s laptop keys. She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but she tried to focus on her work, only stealing occasional glances at Stiles. 

At one point, she was completely engrossed in her work, sighing in relief when her calculated theoretical values matched up with the theory from a paper she was modelling. She glanced up at the sound of Stiles turning a page, and her eye caught what was lying on the table in front of him, her face probably blanching a little bit, because he was staring at close up photos of a dead body, clearly stabbed multiple times. 

“Oh, shit,” Stiles said, noticing that she had seen his papers. “This is for class, I promise.” He winced apologetically, continuing. “It’s for my forensics class. I’m a criminology major. I’m not a serial killer or something, I swear.” 

“You have to look at photos of dead bodies for your homework?” she asked, fixing him with a look. 

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “We have to analyze types of injuries, cause of death, stuff like that.” 

Lydia looked at the photo primly, raising her eyebrows at Stiles. “I think it’s pretty obvious he was stabbed to death,” she told him. 

He rolled his eyes. “Well, they’re not always so black and white,” he explained. He glanced at her papers, brow furrowing at the in-depth calculations. “What are  _ you  _ working on?”

“It’s a project for modern physics,” she said. “Utilizing Einstein’s general theory of relativity to disprove the main concepts of classical physics.” 

“Jesus, that sounds impossible,” Stiles said, shaking his head.

Lydia shrugged. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “Just a lot of partial differential equations.” 

Stiles shook his head. “Yeah, math was never really my strong suit,” he admitted. “What major are you?” 

“Theoretical physics and applied mathematics,” she told him, a hint of pride to her voice. “I’m not sure, I still might minor in biochemistry.” 

“Holy shit,” he responded, jaw dropped a little. “What school do you go to?”

“MIT.”

“Okay, so you’re a genius,” he said, as if everything had clicked into place. “That makes sense.” 

Lydia nodded, not denying his statement. She  _ did  _ have an IQ of 170. “Where do you go to school?” she asked, interest in her homework suddenly lost.  

“BU,” he responded, flailing his arm in a way that  _ might  _ have been him trying to point in the direction of Boston University. 

“And you come all the way to Cambridge for coffee?” Lydia asked, arching an eyebrow as she took a sip of her drink. Stiles groaned, rolling his eyes. 

“There is an  _ annoying  _ amount of Dunkin’ Donuts in this city,” he told her. “And the Starbucks on campus are  _ insanely  _ crowded at all times of the day.” 

“I take it you’re not from the east coast, then,” she said, smiling at his jab against Dunkin’ Donuts. 

“Nah, I’m from California,” he replied. He looked around the shop, taking in the cozy, comfortable atmosphere. “This place actually reminds me of a little coffee shop in my hometown.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back.” 

“They do have really good coffee,” she offered, grinning at him slightly. Stiles laughed, nodding his head, before turning back to his homework, the conversation between them dying as they fell back into comfortable silence. 

Lydia stared at the partial differential equations on her page, finding she was less able to focus now. She glanced up at Stiles, watching his eyes as he examined another photo of a dead body, his lips pursed in concentration. 

He was cute, Lydia had to admit. Not her typical type, but— ever since Jackson, she’d been a little leery of her typical type anyways. His nose turned up at the end, and he had a slight scattering of moles across his face, his jawline sharp and defined. But his eyes were what really got her— god, she had never seen eyes like his before. And it had been nice, chatting with him for those few couple minutes. He was funny, albeit a little awkward at times, with his flailing limbs and exaggerated facial expressions. But it worked for him— it was almost endearing. 

Lydia decided that maybe sharing her table with him wasn’t the  _ worst  _ thing in the world. 

***

The next time Lydia came into the shop, her table was noticeably empty. 

Lydia tried not to be disappointed, assuring herself that it would probably be good to have the space to herself while she worked through her  _ extensive  _ problem set of differential equations. But there was something in the back of her mind, some tiny, nagging voice, that was sort of crestfallen at not getting to see Stiles.

Regardless, she took her table, spreading her papers out, firing up her laptop. Lydia pulled her headphones from her bag, plugging them into her phone and selecting one of her many study playlists— it was going to be a  _ long  _ day. Midterms may have been over, but that just meant every day was another day closer to finals, and the looming Thanksgiving break was doing nothing to deter her teachers from giving them copious amounts of homework. 

An hour passed uneventfully, Lydia sipping on her coffee and working through her calculus homework, and she had almost forgotten about Stiles and his intoxicating amber eyes. 

Until someone was clearing their throat, and Lydia was looking up, her line of sight locking onto those very eyes. 

“Hi,” Stiles said, offering her a slight grin, his expression absurdly optimistic. “Uh, all the other tables are full,” he said, glancing around the shop. “So I was wondering if you would mind if I sat here again?” 

Lydia gave the shop a quick glance, spotting at least one empty booth on the other side of the cafe, and three separate spots available at the counter. She didn’t point that out, though— condensing her notes, she just nodded, trying not to laugh as Stiles enthusiastically slid into the other end of the booth. She watched him casually as he unpacked his homework, trying to pretend like she was actually focused on her own. 

“No dead bodies today?” she asked, arching a perfect brow as he dropped a heavy math textbook on the table. Stiles shook his head, regarding the textbook like it was his mortal enemy. 

“Nope. Just frickin’ calculus.”

“Hey, don’t insult calculus,” Lydia reprimanded, smiling slightly. “I happen to love calculus.” 

“Well, then you clearly have never experienced real pleasure in life,” Stiles retorted, but the from the tilt of his smile, Lydia could tell he was kidding. 

“I am practically  _ majoring  _ in calculus,” she told him, unable to keep from laughing now. 

“Can you do mine for me, then?” Stiles asked. 

“Sure,” Lydia said, not entirely sure if he was kidding. “What kind of calc? Give it to me, I’ll help you.” 

“I honestly don’t know,” Stiles said, surrendering his notebook. “Calc 2? Is that a type of calc?” 

Lydia stared at his notebook, trying to decipher his messy scrawl. “This is integration by parts,” she told him, not mentioning the fact that she had mastered this freshman year of high school. She glanced across the table, meeting his eye, her differential equations long forgotten. 

“Come sit here,” she said, gesturing to the empty bench next to her. “I’ll explain how to do this.” 

Stiles froze a little, not sure if she was serious. But she just nodded, regarding him sincerely, until he finally stood up and slid into the seat next to her. Somehow this was different than sitting across from him, even though the distance in physical space was marginally smaller— it felt more charged to be right next to him, their legs mere inches apart, Stiles’s long fingers next to hers on the tabletop. He slid his notebook so that it was in between the two of them, and it snapped her back to focus a little bit, Stiles’s messy scrawl staring  back up at her. 

“So I get how to set it up,” he told her, pointing to one of the problems. “I have my  _ u  _ term, and my  _ dv  _ term, and I know how the formula works. But it’s when I get to here that it doesn’t make sense.” She followed where he was pointing, examining the new integral he’d set up. “This is just as complicated as the first one. And u-substitution still doesn’t work.” 

“Well, that’s because you’re choosing your  _ u  _ and  _ dv  _ terms wrong,” she explained. “You’re taking the derivative of  _ u  _ to get  _ du,  _ right? So ideally, that should be a term that has a derivative without any variables in it.” She pointed to the problem he was working on now. “The derivative of e 4x  is 4e 4x . That makes more sense as your  _ dv  _ term, because its derivative still has a variable in it, and when you take the antiderivative to get  _ v,  _ you’ll still have a variable there too, whereas the derivative of 9x is just 9. There’s no variable in that term anymore, right? Now, when you plug  _ du  _ into the integral in the equation, you’ll be able to just take the integral of 1/4e 4x times 9, because the x from your set of  _ u  _ terms will be gone. Now it’s a simple integral.” 

“Oh,” Stiles said, comprehension dawning on his face. “See,  _ that  _ makes sense.” 

She smirked at him. “So maybe calculus  _ isn’t  _ the worst.” 

Stiles grimaced. “Eh, still debatable.” 

Stiles turned to the rest of his problems, chewing on the end of his pencil as he read through the textbook examples. Lydia tried to focus on her own work, determined not to be distracted by his  _ very  _ pretty mouth. Mentally reprimanding herself, Lydia stared at the eigenvalues she’d already solved for, determined to finish out the problem set.

The problem was, Stiles was  _ distracting  _ in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Sitting next to him like this was somehow completely different than sitting across the table from him— she could feel his leg shaking steadily, only a few inches away from her, could see the shadows his lashes cast on his cheekbones, could trace the constellations of his moles with her eyes. Stiles drummed his fingers against the table as he wrote out the answer to another problem, and Lydia swallowed, staring at his hands.  _ A human shouldn’t be allowed to have such nice looking hands,  _ she reasoned, but somehow, Stiles did. She was close enough that she could  _ smell  _ him too, his scent a mix of laundry detergent and old books and something almost minty. Lydia rarely got distracted by boys, but somehow, sitting next to him right now— this just felt different. More charged, maybe. More intimate. 

Lydia wasn’t sure what to think of that, and she refused to acknowledge the teeny butterflies in her stomach.

They fell back into comfortable silence, both of them focused intently on their work.  _ Math,  _ Lydia told herself.  _ Focus on your math. Not on Stiles.  _ This was ridiculous, anyways. She barely even  _ knew  _ this guy. And sure, he was cute, but there were lots of cute guys in her classes. This shouldn’t have been a problem, and Lydia was determined to make sure it  _ wasn’t.  _

An hour to so passed before Stiles stood up, wordlessly grabbing his empty coffee cup and heading for the counter again. Lydia looked up briefly, pausing in simplifying her eigenvectors, watching him rejoin the line to get a refill on his coffee. 

_ Focus,  _ she insisted again, looking back at her math. 

Stiles returned a minute later, placing his new drink on the table and sliding back into the booth next to her. She glanced up, quickly, just in time to see him place a plate with two chocolate chip muffins between them. Her eyebrows raised in surprise, glancing at him.

“You hungry?” she teased, nodding towards the two muffins. He just blinked at her for a second, seemingly trying to comprehend what she’d just said. 

“What?” he finally asked, brow furrowed in confusion in a manner that Lydia tried (and failed) to convince herself wasn’t adorable. 

“Two muffins?” she said, eyes sliding down to the plate again. “You must be hungry.” 

He blinked at her again, shaking his head. “Oh, one of them’s for you,” he said, pushing the plate a little closer to her. “I’m starving, so I figured you were too.” 

“Oh,” she said, eyebrows raising. Now it was her turn to be confused. “You bought me a muffin?” she asked, meeting his eyes, breath catching a little bit at the look in them. 

“You helped me with calculus,” he countered, shrugging. “Plus. The chocolate chip muffins here are to  _ die  _ for.” 

She couldn’t argue with that. Stiles grabbed one of them, pulling off the wrapper before tearing off the top, taking a bite and sighing in contentment. Hesitantly, she tugged the plate towards her, daintily unwrapping her muffin as well. 

They worked in almost silence for the rest of the afternoon, both of them focused on the work before them. Lydia finished her differential equations homework, moving onto an english writing assignment due next week, her keyboard clicking as Stiles finished working through his math problems. She didn’t even notice him packing up his bag until he was standing, hands shoved in his pockets, bouncing on the balls of his feet awkwardly. 

“I’m taking off,” he told her. “Thanks again for the help with math. I’ll, uh, see you soon?”

He sounded so hopeful that Lydia just nodded, smiling softly at him. He grinned back, turning and heading out of the shop, the doorbell jingling behind him. 

She left not long after, the table feeling a little too empty without him there. 

***

They fell into a routine, after that, whoever showed up first saving the table for both of them. It began to feel natural, sharing her space with Stiles. There was something about his presence that was sort of calming, grounding. Sometimes she would help him with calculus, and sometimes he would let her just talk about her studies, completely engrossed, regardless of his level of comprehension. And anytime he got himself food, he would get Lydia a muffin, too.

She  _ didn’t  _ like him, though, despite what Allison insisted. 

“Seriously,” Lydia told her best friend, cell phone pressed to her ear. “He’s just some guy I do homework with, Allison. He’s not anything special.”

She could feel her stomach twist a little at those words, however, because they weren’t entirely true.

“Sure,” Allison responded, her skeptical tone of voice suggesting that she did  _ not  _ believe Lydia in the slightest. 

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?” Lydia responded, almost laughing. “Because I’ll have you know, I am offended by the mere insinuation.” 

“I’m definitely saying I don’t believe you, because I  _ don’t,”  _ Allison replied. “You  _ hate  _ doing homework with other people. You barely did homework with  _ me  _ in high school. And all of a sudden you’re completely fine with sharing your table at the cafe with some random guy?” 

“I don’t have time to talk about this,” Lydia said breezily, pulling open the door to the coffee shop, reveling in the warm air inside— it was officially  _ freezing  _ in Boston. 

“You are not evading my questions that easily,” Allison rebutted, but Lydia had already spotted Stiles at their usual table. He waved in greeting, smile wide. 

“I’ll talk to you later, Allison,” Lydia said, hanging up the phone as she dumped her bag on the bench opposite Stiles. “Hi,” she said to him in greeting, pulling off her coat and tucking her phone into her pocket. 

“Hey,” Stiles said, sliding his notebooks down. Dead bodies  _ and  _ calculus today. “I grabbed your coffee for you,” Stiles said, pushing a cup towards her. Lydia blinked in surprise, staring at the pumpkin spiced latte she had been planning on ordering. “The line was hellishly long, and I know you always get here around noon on Saturdays.” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Lydia said automatically, sitting down in the booth and pulling the coffee cup towards her. 

“Well, you don’t have to help me with math, and yet here we are,” Stiles responded, his smile soft. “I didn’t mind grabbing it. I got one too.” 

“Thank you,” Lydia said, regardless, because she wasn’t used to people being so selfless towards her. Thinking of her. Putting her first. 

She smirked, though, continuing. “I would not have pegged you as a pumpkin spice kind of guy,” she said, raising an eyebrow. Stiles shrugged.

“Pumpkin spice season is almost over,” he said, voice defensive. “Thanksgiving is next week, and then it’ll be all gingerbread lattes and peppermint hot chocolate. I’ve gotta get my pumpkin spice fix in while I still can.” 

Lydia laughed. “Are you going home next week?” she asked. Stiles nodded. 

“Yeah, I’m flying out Monday night. My dad misses me.” He looked at Lydia expectantly. “What about you?” 

“No, I’m not going home,” she said. “The six hour flight back to California is way too much for a weekend. I have a friend who goes to NYU, so I’m going to visit her for Thanksgiving.”

They turned back to their work after that, Lydia helping Stiles with his calculus— today it was inverse trig function substitutions in integrals— as she sipped on her latte. They spent the rest of the afternoon working in comfortable silence, though Stiles would occasionally interject with snarky comments about the dead bodies he was analyzing. Lydia laughed at him, trying to bite back her smile, and  _ god,  _ maybe Allison was right. She was openly laughing at someone’s jokes while she was trying to do her homework— what was  _ happening  _ to her?

It was almost six when they both packed up their stuff, beyond tired of studying. “Hey,” Stiles said hesitantly, and Lydia looked up from her backpack, putting away her laptop. “I was wondering,” Stiles said, and his voice sounded nervous again, all of a sudden. “I still have some calc problems to finish. Could I maybe get your phone number? So I can text you in case I have any questions?” 

Lydia blinked in surprise, taken aback, but Stiles was staring at her so earnestly, so hopefully, that she found she couldn’t really say no. And there was some small part of her heart that was urging her to say yes. 

“Sure,” Lydia said, holding out her hand for his phone. He fumbled for it in his pocket, only flailing a little, before producing it, pulling up a blank contact page for her to fill out. She handed it back a minute later, and she couldn’t help the way her heart sped up at Stiles’s smile. 

When he texted her later that night, they talked about everything _ but  _ homework.

***

When Lydia walked into the coffee shop on December first, backpack heavy with textbooks and final projects, she had to take a minute to make sure she was actually in the right place, because the shop was almost unrecognizable. 

Christmas decorations covered every surface, fake snow glittering on top of the bakery display case, icicle lights hanging from all the windows. There were pine garlands strung around the entire shop, red Christmas bows tied sporadically along the garland, and twinkling white lights wound everywhere. She noticed at least one Christmas tree, beautifully decorated with silver and gold ornaments, a coffee cup perched on top instead of a star.

The one thing that remained unchanged was the boy at the far table, hair still slightly ruffled and homework spread out in front of him. 

“Do you think it’s Christmas time?” Lydia said in greeting, sliding into the seat across from him. Stiles looked up, his eyes twinkling as brightly as the lights strung above their table. 

“What makes you think that?” he asked, smirking, before pushing a coffee cup towards her. “Regardless, it’s now gingerbread latte season. Enjoy.” 

“How do you always know exactly what I’m going to order?” Lydia asked, before taking a sip of her drink. Literally every time she came in after Stiles, he would already have her coffee waiting for her, and it was generally the same thing she was planning on getting. “Seriously, did you put a chip in my brain or something?”

“Nah, I’m just psychic,” Stiles said, shaking his head in acceptance. 

“You’re  _ something,”  _ Lydia teased, smirking. Stiles pulled a face, mocking outrage, but he couldn’t hide the laugh he was biting back. Lydia tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach at that look on his face, but that was getting harder and harder to do as of late. 

_ Homework  _ was getting harder and harder to do as of late as well. For the past couple weeks, Lydia had found herself so easily distracted from math, which was certainly a new development for her. But she couldn’t help it— talking to Stiles was irresistible; the light in his eyes or the grin on his face sent her heart into overdrive. They were friends, now, Lydia thought— they texted each other frequently, and despite his original reasoning, Stiles almost  _ never  _ asked about homework. Instead he would ramble on about stupid things he’d done with his best friend, complain about his professors, lament the fierce love for the Red Sox here that kept him from  _ ever  _ seeing his precious Mets on television. They would just  _ talk,  _ and Lydia loved having someone who would just  _ listen  _ to her— even when she went off on tangents about theoretical physics that he definitely did  _ not  _ understand. 

Still, she wasn’t about to admit any of that to Allison, when she called later. 

“You are  _ so  _ in denial,” Allison informed her over FaceTime, a partially-accusatory look on her face. “Lydia. Don’t argue with me, because you know I’m right.” 

“I know nothing of the sort,” Lydia rebutted, making a face. “He’s just a friend, Allison.” 

“Sure,” Allison said, the disbelief evident in her eyes. “A friend who you spend, like,  _ every waking minute  _ with. Are you ever actually in your dorm anymore? Does your roommate think you moved out?” 

“I’m in my dorm right now!” Lydia defended, her eyes flitting to the top of the screen as a new snapchat notification came through.  _ Stiles.  _ Hurriedly, she glanced back at Allison, but judging by the other girl’s expression, she could already tell what it was. 

“I’m just saying,” Allison started, voice softer. “You seem really happy when you’re talking about him. I haven’t seen you smile that much about a guy since before—”

“Please don’t bring up Jackson,” Lydia begged, trying to block the memories of her jackass ex from her mind. 

“It’s just nice to see you  _ happy  _ like this again, Lydia,” Allison continued. “And I think you should give him a chance.” 

“Who said I’m  _ not  _ giving him a chance?” Lydia asked. Allison rolled her eyes. 

“Not what I meant. I meant you should give  _ you  _ a chance. To be happy with him.” 

Lydia froze at that, her heartbeat speeding up. 

Maybe Allison was right. Sure, she liked being Stiles’s friend, but she couldn’t help herself from wanting a little  _ more.  _ A picture popped into her mind, her and Stiles hand in hand, that grin on his face, small and private, his eyes shining as he looked at her— the two of them somewhere other than the confines of the table in the back of the coffee shop. And god, she hadn’t realized how much she wanted that until this very moment. 

_ You should give  _ you  _ a chance. To be happy with him. _

Maybe it was worth the risk.

***

“Well?” Stiles said nervously, his leg shaking, fingers drumming against the tabletop. “What do you think?”

“Shh,” Lydia instructed, eyes still focused on his laptop screen. “I’m not done reading yet.” 

She read through the last few sentences, and when she finally looked over at Stiles again, sitting right next to her at the booth, she couldn’t help but laugh.

_ “What?”  _ he demanded. 

“You look like you’re being tortured,” Lydia told him, a grin still playing on her face. 

“I  _ am,”  _ Stiles responded, hands flailing. “This is my final paper for my Crime and Justice class, and it needs to be  _ good,  _ and you  _ won’t tell me if you liked it or not!”  _

“It was really good,” she assured him, putting him out of his misery. His body sagged in relief at her words, and she pushed the laptop back towards him on the table. His knee brushed up against her thigh at the movement, and Lydia tried to control the sudden acceleration of her heart, remembering exactly how close together they were sitting right now. 

“Good enough for me to turn in as thirty percent of my grade?” Stiles checked. Lydia nodded, certain in her assessment. 

“Yes. It was really well written. An interesting take on that case, too.” 

“Okay, good,” Stiles said, grinning. He hit save on his laptop before closing it, awkwardly fist-pumping. “I am now  _ officially  _ done with work for the semester.” 

Lydia had one more final tomorrow, but it was in chemistry, and she wasn’t necessarily worried about it. She’d been learning chemistry since she was ten, and she had yet to encounter a topic in this class she didn’t already previously know. It was sort of a letdown, honestly. 

“Well, you fly home tomorrow, don’t you?” Lydia asked, ignoring the unpleasant feeling in her stomach at the thought of not seeing Stiles every day like this. He’d somehow become such an integral part of her life, and these hours they spent together in this coffee shop— they were the best part of this school year. The thought of seeing Stiles’s soft smile, her coffee order already in front of her spot, kept her going on days when she really felt like throwing in the towel. 

“No, day after tomorrow,” Stiles corrected her. “Which is good. I haven’t started packing yet.” 

_ “Stiles,”  _ she reprimanded, fighting the grin creeping onto her face. He smiled cheekily back at her. 

“It’s gonna be weird, being home again,” Stiles said. “Where am I going to get my daily coffee fix?” 

“Didn’t you say there was a place like this in your hometown?” Lydia asked, raising an eyebrow. Stiles shrugged in response. 

“Yeah, but they don’t make peppermint hot chocolate like this place does.”

“I bet they don’t decorate like this either,” Lydia offered, gesturing vaguely to the Christmas decorations that somehow seemed to have  _ multiplied  _ in the past couple weeks. 

Stiles grinned, shaking his head, and something… something inside Lydia just  _ snapped.  _ She couldn’t take it anymore, this distance between them, and all she could focus on was Stiles: his eyes, his hands, his smile. That soft look on his face, his lips tugged up to the side in a little smirk, that affectionate shine to his eyes, gold flecks sparkling in his amber irises. 

_ You should give  _ you  _ a chance. To be happy with him. _

Before she could stop herself, before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned into him, pressing her lips to his. 

Stiles  _ froze,  _ completely unmoving, and Lydia immediately pulled back, her eyes wide.  _ Oh, god.  _ What was she  _ thinking?  _ What had she  _ done?  _

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said, heart pounding, her mind panicked. “I shouldn’t have— let’s forget that I just did that—” she said, but Stiles was  _ laughing,  _ and before she could get out the rest of her sentence, his hand was on the back of her head, fingers weaving through her hair as he tugged her into him, kissing her again. She sighed against his lips, smiling into the kiss as her hands snaked around him, his palm warm and steady on the back of her head. He tasted like coffee, the faint hint of peppermint hot chocolate still on his tongue, and Lydia’s heart fluttered, because this felt  _ so right.  _

“I would sort of prefer we  _ didn’t  _ forget you just did that,” he confessed when they pulled away, their foreheads still pressed together, noses brushing. Lydia grinned, biting her lip. 

“I thought I’d misinterpreted the situation,” she replied. “That I was reading into things.” 

“Wait, you thought I didn’t like you?” Stiles asked, pulling away, his expression bemused. “Really?” 

“Believe it or not, I am not always right,” Lydia confessed. 

“Oh, that is absolute bullshit,” Stiles said, grinning. “Also. I take the T  _ twenty five minutes  _ to  _ Cambridge  _ every single day when there are  _ plenty  _ of coffee shops literally  _ on  _ my campus, just to see you. I’m pretty sure if you looked up “hopelessly lovesick” in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me.” 

Lydia just smiled, watching as he took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers. Stiles’s palm was so big in hers, his fingers sending shivers down her arm as they wove between hers. 

Lydia’s eyes caught on something above them, hanging with the other Christmas decorations on the window. A tiny bunch of a little green plant, white berries dotted between the shiny leaves, tied off with a red ribbon. She bit back a laugh, and Stiles followed her eyes. 

“What?” he asked, brow furrowed, fingers still intertwined with hers. 

“Mistletoe,” Lydia said, smiling softly, nodding towards the plant. “That definitely wasn’t here last time.” 

“Well, that’s appropriate,” Stiles said, eyes turning back to hers, shining with fondness.

“Mm,” Lydia hummed, licking her lips slightly, not missing when Stiles’s eyes darted down to them. 

“So, uh,” Stiles said, nose nudging hers. “Can I kiss you again?” 

“Definitely,” she whispered, smiling as he leaned in, closing the small distance between them and capturing her lips with his once more. 

They broke away a minute later, remembering they  _ were  _ still in public, but Lydia’s heart was beating so fast that she thought it might actually escape her chest. Her stomach was full of butterflies in a way that should have felt ridiculous, like she was a seventh grader with a crush again, but somehow— somehow, this just felt right, and so, so perfect. 

“So,” Stiles said, hand still holding hers. “When we get back from break— what do you think about maybe going on a date? Seeing each other somewhere that’s  _ not  _ this coffee shop?”

Lydia grinned, her heart thumping, her smile radiant.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

***

Across the cafe, behind the counter, the barista sighed in relief at the sight of that guy and the little redhead tangled up together in the end booth, homework on their table completely abandoned.

The whole staff had been betting on when they would get together for  _ weeks,  _ and she had put money on today. And sure, maybe hanging mistletoe in their booth was cheating, but the betting pool was almost up to two hundred dollars at this point. She had her eye on a new cashmere sweater that she  _ knew  _ no one would buy her for Christmas, and she deserved this, after watching these two flirt with each other without  _ doing  _ anything about it for the past two months. 

She glanced down at the counter again, wiping up coffee spills from a long day of customers, before looking back across the almost-empty cafe, eyes falling on the couple again. The girl had her back towards the counter, but the guy she could see, his hands woven into the girl’s curls. The expression on his face, too— god, his eyes were shining, his smile so soft, and it was clear just from the way they were looking at each other, gravitating towards each other, that they were both head over heels. 

The barista looked away, focusing on the counter again. But she couldn’t help smiling privately to herself, just thinking of those two, finally together.

It was about time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, in case you were wondering, I am that barista. If I had to watch Stydia flirt with each other every day for months, I too would resort to drastic measures.


End file.
